The first home game of the basketball season was Wednesday, Nov. 13 and the energy from both of the women’s basketball teams: the Eagles and the Jennies, were tangible.

Several times the ball was just a blur and the crowd roared their approval with every shot scored.

Within the first five minutes, Eagles guard No. 12, Ashley Johnson, lost her shoe and played, for the next ten seconds with only one shoe on.

The women’s basketball team was alight with energy despite their slow start, only gaining an advantage after the first quarter was over and then surpassing the Central Missouri Jennies at the end of the first half with a close 23-22.

“I think that we got off to a slow start,” Eagles guard No. 3, Kiara Moses, said. “But at the end of the game, we showed what we’ve been doing in practice. I am impressed with our performance, but I think we still have a lot to do.”

After such a nail biting first half, the motivation ran high and the team came back and fought with renewed strength and motivation in the second quarter and kept it up throughout the rest of the game.

“We kept our motivation because our defense was so good tonight,” said Hannah Haithcock, No. 30 for the women’s basketball team. “I mean, we preach three stops, stops, and that’s what we got. led us to our run, so that was really important for us.”

The Screaming Eagles came out on top with the win scoring 52-45 against the Central Missouri Jennies. The game was so good that Rick Stein, the head coach of the women’s basketball team, had a hard time picking the best play of the night.

“Those last three quarters were just really huge for us defensively and we kind of got a rhythm offensively after we got some stops our defense kind of fueled our offense,” Rick Stein, the head coach of the women’s basketball team said.

The team’s emotions ran high at the end of the game, running together and piling on top of one another with smiles splitting their faces. Even Archie the Eagle was jumping up and down with excitement over the win.

The women’s next game will be against Ferris State University at 12 p.m. Nov. 23.